Prisoners

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown's office late Thursday produced a court-ordered plan to reduce prison crowding that includes the early release of thousands of inmates and the relocation of some prisoners to private lockups or state fire camps, among other measures. FOR THE RECORD: Prison plan: An article in the May 3 LATExtra section said that Gov. Jerry Brown's office produced a plan to reduce prison crowding by releasing thousands of inmates early. In fact, the plan proposes releasing hundreds, not thousands, of inmates.

Prosecutors are considering whether to file criminal charges against a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy accused of assaulting an inmate who was helping federal authorities investigate a suspected international drug trafficker, according to records and interviews. The inmate accused Deputy Michael Camacho of targeting him, at least in part, because he was cooperating with detectives as an informant, internal records show. The records indicate that in July, the inmate told his sheriff's handlers that Camacho punched him in his torso and ribs.

At his news conference Tuesday, President Obama made a powerful plea for ending the humanitarian and diplomatic disaster created by the continued detention of more than 160 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, more than 100 of whom are engaged in a hunger strike that necessitated the dispatch of an emergency medical team. The problem is that Obama has contributed to the crisis by acquiescing in congressional obstruction of his promise to close the facility. We hope he is serious when he says he will now "re-engage with Congress that this is not in the best interest of the American people.

SACRAMENTO - The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped in to investigate outbreaks of valley fever in two California prisons where more than three dozen inmates have died after contracting the fungal disease. Staff from the Atlanta-based CDC met with state prison health officials Tuesday and another meeting is planned Thursday. California's health department formally asked for the assistance last week on behalf of a court-appointed monitor, who had previously requested repeatedly that state officials seek federal help.

Gov. Jerry Brown is pursuing a prison contract in California, too small to meet federal orders to reduce crowding, but enough to help Brown end the shipment of inmates to for-profit prisons out of state. According to bid documents, California offers to pay no more than $63 a day, on top of facility costs, to house up to 1,225 additional inmates in what the state calls "modified community" prisons. California currently has 600 inmates in one such private prison, paying more than $13 million a year to the GEO Group Inc . Bids for the new facilities are due May 28. At one point, California housed more than 5,600 inmates in 13 small "community" prisons built for state prisoners by local governments or by private prison operators.

WASHINGTON - Confronted with a mass hunger strike and the use of forced feedings to keep inmates from starving, President Obama broke a long silence on the military prison for suspected foreign terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, declaring it "not sustainable" and making a strongly worded plea Tuesday for its closure. Guantanamo is "a problem that is not going to get better. It's going to get worse. It's going to fester," Obama said at a White House news conference in his most extensive comments on the issue in two years.

MEXICO CITY - Gen. Tomas Angeles Dauahare, who once held the plum post of military attache to the Mexican Embassy in Washington, was rumored to be the next defense minister of Mexico. Until that day in May last year when he and three other top military men were arrested on suspicion of working on behalf of a notorious drug cartel. It was the largest indictment of army officers on charges of drug-trafficking in recent memory, hailed in many quarters as proof of then-President Felipe Calderon's determination to root out corruption at every level.

A woman could be sentenced to life in prison for allegedly cutting off her husband's penis and throwing it into the garbage disposal, Orange County prosecutors said. Catherine Kieu, 50, faces felony charges of torture and aggravated mayhem, with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a knife, court records show. Kieu was arrested the night of July 11, 2011, after she and her 60-year-old husband, whose name has not been released, apparently argued about the possibility of a friend staying at their home, prosecutors said.

A member of the LulzSec hacker group was sentence to a year in federal prison Thursday as a result of his involvement with a cyberattack in 2011. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ordered Cody Andrew Kretsinger, a 25-year-old Decatur, Ill., resident to also serve a year of home detention after he completes his time in prison. He will also be required to perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay more than $605,000 in restitution. Kretsinger, who went by the name of "recursion" during his days with LulzSec, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer in connection with the hacker group's attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment's computer systems in May and June 2011.

CAIRO -- Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ordered back to Tora Prison after a medical report Wednesday determined that he no longer needed advanced treatment at a military hospital along the Nile. A probe by the general prosecutor's office into Mubarak's health followed his robust appearance during a court session Saturday on murder-related charges. His eyes concealed beneath tinted glasses, the 84-year-old deposed leader looked fit as he confidently waved and smiled at supporters through iron bars.